


a study in fairy dust

by dandelionlighters



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: Dark Wade, M/M, Minor Wade/Landon, Wade NoLastName
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29345607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelionlighters/pseuds/dandelionlighters
Summary: They made fun of him. The poor boy. The easy target. The defective witch in a school full of powerful supernaturals. Nowhere to go. No one to trust. Nothing to lose.
Relationships: Landon Kirby/Wade, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	a study in fairy dust

Wade had no friends. 

He had no last name either. 

He didn’t belong to a coven, or a family, and neither had ever tried to claim him in the seven years he’d been at the boarding school. 

He lived there as a pocket of air, and people noticed him as much as they were conscious of the act of breathing. That was to say, no one noticed him at all. 

Sometimes, he would think the people at his old group home cared more about him than the students there. The teachers there. The headmaster. 

Headmaster Alaric Saltzman. 

He couldn’t care less about Wade. 

He’d only pretended to care long enough to rope the naive boy into his private, little supernatural school. Once Wade agreed to enroll there as a student, Alaric had never looked his way again. 

_ “Hi. Wade?” The woman—Mrs. Beckley—peeked her head into his room.  _

_ At age nine, Wade raised his head from where he’d been playing with his fingers in his lap. They were short and stubby, but they were his fingers, and he didn’t mind them.  _

_ “I have someone here that would like to talk to you, is that okay?” Mrs. Beckley asked, opening the door an inch wider.  _

_ “Talk to me?” He was breathless, hopeful, head spinning at the chance to meet someone new, to get out of this god-forsaken orphanage.  _

_ It wasn’t an orphanage, not really. At least, no one dared to call it that anymore. Group home. Foster care. Not orphanage. Never orphanage. It was simply just a coincidence that half the kids who lived there didn’t have parents.  _

_ Temporary.  _

_ That was what his caseworker called it—his living situation. It was  _ only _ temporary, she would say, just until she found him a  _ real _ foster home, but Wade had never liked the idea of that, either.  _

_ “Yes.” It was not Mrs. Beckley that answered, but an older man, with the bare scruff of a growing beard and light-brown, calculating eyes. “If that’s fine with you, Wade.”  _

_ That was his first mistake. Not seeing the trick right in front of him for what it was.  _

If that’s fine with you, Wade. 

_ As if he had a choice, an out. As if he could have told the man to go away, as if he would have listened.  _

_ Looking back, Wade felt his stomach twist. Even the use of his name was deliberate—to establish a connection, to endear him to the man, to familiarize himself.  _

_ It had worked.  _

_ Wade nodded quickly, eagerly, standing up from his bed like someone had just set his pants on fire. Mrs. Beckley smiled, the big crayon one that never seemed to stick, and left the two alone.  _

_ “Do you mind if I sit?” The strange man pointed to the identical bed across from Wade’s own.  _

_ It was his roommate, Jimmy’s. _

_ Jimmy wouldn’t like that, he thought. His roommate hated when people invaded his personal space. Well, the little personal space they had left.  _

_ And Wade had no right, no right at all, but he found himself shaking his head. Found himself smiling, playing the fool. Years of friendship betrayed in the instant of a single moment. How silly he’d been.  _

_ “My name is Alaric.” The man sat down. “But you can call me Ric.”  _

_ He looked around, his eyes lingering on a spot on the wall next to him. The paint was chipped.  _

_ “Do you like it here, Wade?” Alaric asked, but why did he have to use his name again? He must have known what he was doing. He must have.  _

_ “Yes, sir.” Wade nodded, polite. Always polite.  _

_ That was how the system worked. Adults wouldn’t take you in if you didn’t have manners. They liked the nice, quiet kids, or the special ones that stood out. Or they liked the ones that brought them money. That was all of them.  _

_ So he said  _ yes, _he did like it there, quite a lot, and nodded his little head, too, almost like— _

_ Almost like he believed it.  _

_ It couldn’t have been further from the truth.  _

_ Wade didn’t like it there, not at all. He hated it with every fiber of his being, with everything deep inside of him, but it was home. He longed for the moment he finally left and feared it all the same.  _

_“Have you ever noticed_ weird _things happening around you?” Alaric asked, a few moments later, when he decided he was done with small talk. “Things you can’t explain, things you can do that other kids can’t?”_

_ That was the same day Wade found out he was special. Supernatural. A  _ witch _ , the man told him.  _

_ It made Wade pause. He wasn’t expecting it, but maybe he should have been. Maybe, just maybe, he should have done a better job of hiding it.  _

_ Wrong, wrong, wrong— _

_ Wade blinked and looked away. He went back to playing with his fingers in his lap. It was a habit of his. A habit he’d sworn he stopped.  _

_ The other man must have seen the look on his face. He corrected himself. No, not a witch. A  _ warlock. _Like that would have changed things. _

_ Still, it didn’t feel right, none of it felt right, and Wade knew it wasn’t, he knew it never would.  _

_“They can support you better than we can,” Mrs. Beckley told him on his way out, as if he hadn’t been there for years. “Doctor Saltzman assured me you’ll be taken care of.”_

_ Wade clenched his teeth and hid it with a smile. She was desperate to get rid of him.  _

_ “Can I say goodbye to Jimmy first?” he asked.  _

_ He struggled not to look, not to turn back. Just one more glance, one more step, he kept telling himself, but his heart wasn’t in it.  _

_ “Jimmy?” Mrs. Beckley sighed. “I’m sorry, but Jimmy is in timeout right now. You don’t want to make the nice man wait, do you?”  _

_ “But Jimmy—“ _

_“You’re a good boy, Wade,” she said, her patience with him wearing thin. “Why would you ever want_ anything _to do with a boy like that? Believe me when I say it’ll do you a lot of good staying away from those kind...”_

_ Whatever she said next, he didn’t hear it. He stared down at his fingers and thought only of his roommate.  _

_ Jimmy wasn’t a good boy. They all thought he was angry and destructive and said mean things whenever he opened his mouth. He didn’t. Wade thought he was quiet and misunderstood.  _

_They’d ask Wade—precious, sweet,_ innocent _Wade—why he was friends with a boy like him. He’d tell people Jimmy had a way about him. He had a_ charm _._

_ Then they’d look at Wade in confusion, shaking their heads, like they knew better, like Wade knew nothing, because most of them never saw it.  _

_ “Ready?”  _

_ Alaric was waiting for him outside with a tight smile. He made Wade sit in the back of the car. He was too young to sit in the front, the man said.  _

_ The ride to the Salvatore Boarding School was long. Cold. His new bed was even colder, he thought, as he went to sleep that night.  _

_ The first thing he did was think of his old roommate. The first thing Alaric did was leave him alone.  _

Years passed and he never talked to him again. _How did you find me?_ He wanted to ask the man. _How did you know?_

Alaric either didn’t have the time to answer his questions, or he just didn’t care. No. A fool Wade was to wonder. The man just didn’t care. 

He spent half his time drinking himself into a stupor, the other half trying and and failing to protect his two daughters. Idiot. Didn’t he know they could protect themselves better than he ever could? 

Wade felt bile rise in his throat. 

The man made his skin crawl and the back of his neck itch and his stomach turn and his lip curl and—

He wished he’d left him alone, wished he’d never met him at all. Alaric took and took and _took_ and never gave. He’d taken things from Wade that the boy might have even offered up willingly, if only he’d ask. 

His daughters were even worse.

The taller one was blonde. Snobby. So cold he feared his hand would burn if he touched her. 

Lizzie, he would try to get her attention, a pretty name, he would say, and she would roll her eyes at him and ask him his own name, call him by the wrong one like he hadn’t told her a hundred—no, a thousand—times before.

Josie never got his name right either. She was no better. The codependent siphoner who loved and hated hiding in her sister’s shadow all the same. She liked boys and girls and...everyone but Wade. 

Not that he blamed her. Children were innocent. They were all innocent, all but one: 

Headmaster Alaric Saltzman. 

It was ironic that the person with the most blood on his hands in an entire school of supernaturals was a human. 

Years of getting used to it, and even now, Wade couldn’t keep his hands from shaking. He pulled on his fingers in his lap and hoped it was enough to still them. 

It was part of the _plan_. It was all part of the plan to make Alaric Saltzman realize his mistakes. To make him pay. 

The plan was a waiting game. Wade would dig his own grave if he lost himself in revenge, so he waited.

He spent hours in his room, waiting and planning and planning and waiting. When his new roommate asked him what he was doing, he would simply answer that he was catching up on homework. When all of his homework was done, he would say he was playing Dungeons and Dragons. 

It was easy, so easy. Too easy. 

He stayed in from parties and worked on his plan, played flag football of all things and pretended that he didn’t have one at all. His glasses were the scariest thing about him. He was unsuspecting. Shy. Patient. 

_Brilliant_. 

His classmates didn’t know that. 

They made fun of him. The poor boy. The easy target. The defective witch in a school full of powerful supernaturals. Nowhere to go. No one to trust. Nothing to lose. 

He’d never been a good-enough student, not for them. He was the boy who aced the magical written exams but failed all of the practicals. The boy who couldn’t do magic, even if it slapped him right across the face. 

He knew _he_ wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t his magic. It was Alaric, he was the only one at fault, telling Wade he was a witch when he wasn’t. No. He was more. He knew what he was. 

He was a fairy. 

It sounded stupid. Even more stupid than being a witch, so he kept it to himself. He knew they wouldn’t believe him. His roommate hadn’t. _Fairies aren’t real, Wade._ People already laughed at him enough as it was. 

They were all content to ignore him, to pretend that he didn’t exist at all. They must have thought he was an outsider. But he was on the inside just as much as the rest of them. 

It made him laugh, made him want to show them just how much he knew, but he didn’t. He would _wait_. 

Now, age sixteen, he sat by himself in the library, a book in his hands. It was a book on fairies. But fairies weren’t real. 

Some sort of commotion by the entrance made him look up. Two people stood, a girl and a boy, arguing in hushed voices. They were making a scene. 

“Run more tests, then!” It was the boy. His hair looked like a bird’s nest. “You can do that, can’t you?” 

Wade couldn’t recognize him. He realized he’d never met him before. His eyes were both dark and bright at the same time. It almost reminded Wade of his old roommate back when he lived in a group home. What was his name? 

“I’m sorry, Landon, but you’re not special!” the girl yelled back angrily, not even trying to keep her voice down. “Get over it!” 

Ah. Hope Mikaelson. The tribrid. 

The girl who swore up and down to anyone that would listen how much she hated being a supernatural abomination, as if any supernatural wasn’t already an abomination, but Wade knew better. He knew that deep inside, where she could never admit it in her broken, little heart—he knew she adored being special and powerful just as much as the rest of them did. 

Wade watched as she stormed out of the library, leaving the other boy behind to stare after her. 

Landon ran his hands through his curly hair and visibly held himself back from following. He glanced around the library, struggling to control himself. 

“Why won’t anyone believe me?” the boy muttered to himself, his voice tight around the desperate lump in his throat. 

It was almost endearing. Wade tilted his head and stared at the other boy. 

He caught his eye, looked away, tried to make it seem like he hadn’t been staring, though getting caught was the plan. He hid a smirk as Landon walked up to him. 

Wade set down his book. 

“I believe you,” he said. He could feel it inside of him, just the same. “I’m Wade.” He stood up and stuck his hand out. “They don’t believe me, either.” 

It wasn’t until after they shook hands that Wade saw him, really _saw_ him. Nothing special. A nobody. And the only person who’d looked his way all day.

Landon was different. He wasn’t like the rest of the school. He didn’t try to hide his need to be special. He embraced it. 

Wade sat back down and listened as Landon explained what had happened to him. It started with his foster brother, Wade learned, but it ended with a human who couldn’t be compelled, even though he wasn’t under the influence of vervain. 

They had things in common. 

“I just, I don’t get it,” Landon told him, half an hour later, frustrated. “We know it’s inside us. Why do we have to prove it?” 

“We don’t,” he said, eyes glinting darker than they ever had before. The other boy froze. “They might not see us, Landon, but they will. Soon.” 

He opened his mouth to say more, thought better of it. He took out a piece of paper, wrote something down, slipped the note to the other boy. In a quiet library full of people with superhearing, he could never be careful enough. 

Landon opened the note and held his breath.He looked both horrified and entranced all at once. 

“I don’t know...” He looked back up at Wade and blinked. “That sounds...” 

Bad. Dark. Evil. 

_ Don’t say it.  _

“Like they’ll never see it coming,” Landon finished, swallowing hard.

He shook his head, but Wade caught the way a single corner of his lips rose up in a smirk, for just a second. 

In that moment, he thought about Jimmy. He hadn’t thought about him, not in a while, he hadn’t thought about Jimmy in _years_ , really, but he thought about him, then. 

Fleetingly. 

Wade looked back at Landon and smiled.

They’d kill Alaric together. Maybe his precious daughters would even help. Wade grinned. They definitely would. 

He just needed to wait. 


End file.
